At the Brink of Collapse
by ValkyrieAce
Summary: The Black family has been cursed since centuries past, but this is the story of Bellatrix Black. The one who yearns but cannot grieve for the ability to love. The one who succumbs to darkness at the hand of Lord Voldemort. Will she be able to find her soulmate and, with it, her own happiness? Warnings for AU inside. Please read and review!


_Author's Note:_ _I would like to give a huge thank you to my beta – Kat-nee – for being there when I seriously needed it. Warning for using an AU where the Black family suffers from blood malediction and Soulmate!AU where the pair of soulmates will be rid of any illnesses and curses if they touch. For the quote, I've used the idea that every action we take has both positive and negative consequences. For the good, I've shown that she does try her best to find a cure, but for bad, I've shown that she ends up succumbing to the family madness. Please read and review if you have anything to say!_

* * *

 **Title/Link:** At the Brink of Collapse

 **Team:** Kenmare Kestrels

 **Position:** Beater 2

 **Extension Used:** No

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 **Season 6, Round** **9** **:** Bellatrix Lestrange

 **Optional Prompts:** (word) harm, (quote) To light a candle is to cast a shadow. – Ursula K. Le Guin, (word) evoke

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 **At the Brink of Collapse** by ValkyrieAce

At the young age of ten, Bellatrix Black was a pureblood supremacist, but she knew how to love. She loved her parents deeply. She felt a mild annoyance but loyalty towards her sisters. She was just a normal girl from the prestigious Black family, waiting for her soulmate to find her.

Oh, how little did she know…

* * *

It was during her sixth year Potions class that she had realised she was abnormal.

Horace Slughorn, the Potions professor in Hogwarts at the time, had assigned the class with a lesson on Amortentia.

"Miss Black, would you mind giving us a little demonstration?" Professor Slughorn asked, his chest puffing out in pride. She made her way to him and waited until he had explained what she was to do. An uneasy feeling spread through her body, even though she only had to smell the potion.

But when she approached it and took a whiff of the spiralling steam, she hadn't smelled a thing.

 _Nothing at all._

Her breath caught in her throat.

Something was really wrong.

"If you would, Miss Black," Professor Slughorn began, "describe the smells you detect."

"Professor... I don't smell anything," she said slowly, her words tinged with confusion.

Immediately, she had known that it wasn't the right thing to say, for Professor Slughorn's face had paled and his eyes widened as he stuttered out a few choppy exclamations in response. Even the students in her class had started to chatter amongst themselves, their eyes filling with pity as they looked at her.

"Class..." he started, his voice seeming shaky and soft, "class is dismissed. The assigned homework is a foot long essay on the effects of Amortentia due next week."

Bellatrix withdrew herself from the group and loitered around her desk as the rest of the students shuffled out, pretending to put her belongings in the bag even though she had already done so.

"To my office, Miss Black," Professor Slughorn said. She nodded and followed him to his office, where he sat behind his desk and rustled through a cabinet hidden behind him. When he withdrew his hand, she could see that it was a vial of a potion of some kind.

"Calming Draught?" he asked. She nodded again, frantically this time, and tipped the now unstoppered vial into her mouth, swallowing the contents in one gulp. She took a deep shaky breath to center herself.

Briefly, she remembered Slughorn speak of the mistakes that occurred when people judged the smell of the potion. He laughed quietly, trying to lighten the futility of his statement. He then apologised for the turn of events.

She knew he was probably telling the truth, but she also knew that this truth didn't apply to her. She was emotionally trapped.

She hadn't smelled anything.

She couldn't _love_.

* * *

By the time she had graduated, she had resolved to use any means necessary to discover how she could evoke deeper emotions like everyone else. She would find a way to be normal. She would find a way to _know_ when she'd finally touched her soulmate.

Even if she couldn't bring herself to grieve for the part of her that she'd already lost.

* * *

A few years after her graduation from Hogwarts, she had gone through many books containing details of magical illnesses that affected the emotional state of the witch or wizard. All she had been able to find was a few paragraphs on various dissimilar illnesses and a footnote on blood-borne illnesses. It was at this point that she considered blood malediction as a possible diagnosis for her condition.

She had even gotten married to Rodolphus in an impulsive attempt to evoke feelings of love within herself, only to feel a combination of intense hate and envy for the people who didn't suffer with this curse.

There was only one other avenue to pursue. She had to see if this was somehow related to the rest of her family as well. In all the time she spent visiting Narcissa and Regulus, she could now tell, with a relative ease, that they were both trapped in the same state as she had been. They, too, were drowning under the emotional dam.

But when she had seen Andromeda's face as her mudblood husband Ted returned home, she could tell that her younger sister wasn't weighed down by the same problems. The joy and love in her eyes were too complex to fake.

The difference between herself and Andromeda suddenly dawned on her, her eyes conveying the horror of her situation.

 _Andromeda was blasted off the tapestry._

* * *

Blasting herself off of the tapestry hadn't changed anything.

The magic protecting it, both the family magic and the magic that prompted the curse, had guaranteed its permanence. Only the Lord or Lady of the Black family could burn someone off the tapestry. And there was no way she could convince her father of the family being cursed with blood malediction, especially considering the possibility that he was affected as well.

She would simply have to find another way.

And she did.

* * *

"I can free you."

"You… can?"

"Of course. Only… You'll have to return the favour with the rest of your life."

"My life and freedom is now in your hands... my Lord."

* * *

For the Dark Lord, she tortured. The screams of her victims left a dull echo in her mind as their agony transformed into her pleasure.

For the Dark Lord, she avenged. The sight of blood pouring from their bodies only elicited a sense of morbid satisfaction.

For the Dark Lord, she killed. The knowledge and experience that her magic could very well control the balance between life and death left her feeling prideful of the results.

Never did she think about the harm she put her conscience through as it wilted away. Neither did she realize that her knowledge from years of researching the Dark Arts could come in handy when harming others.

Now, she would never be normal.

Now, she would be forever controlled by the anger and greed that overtook her mind.

She was so far gone that she couldn't see her Dark Lord for what he was. She was Bellatrix, the Dark Lord's foremost supporter in the First Wizarding War.

* * *

Bellatrix tousled her thick black hair with her knife, the curls catching its glint, giving her hair a silky sheen. She walked to the dungeons in the Malfoy Manor with a skip in her step, cackling loudly as she let the knife clang against the bars of the prison cells and arousing the prisoners from their sleep.

She couldn't wait to see who the Dark Lord had left for her to kill.

Stopping at the designated cell, she peered through, only to see a familiar woman. She was a professor at Hogwarts. Bellatrix thought deeply for a few minutes.

Charity. Charity Burbage was her name.

Unlocking the cell door, she entered the prison, her hand curving with the lust of the kill. She circled the woman once, giving her physical form extreme consideration.

"Hello."

Bellatrix stopped, stunned out of her reverie. No one had attempted to talk to her before their death, after all.

"Hello, pretty bird. Are you ready to die?" Bellatrix asked.

Charity's face contorted for a few seconds, and Bellatrix watched curiously as she proceeded to spit on her shoes. Even under duress, the woman was badly mannered. However, this was what she expected from a blood traitor.

"How dare you!" Bellatrix screeched, her calm morphing into a burning anger. She glared at her with vengeful eyes, her bloodlust spiking dangerously. She pulled Charity's hair and grinned at the choking response, sliding the knife under her chin in a smooth movement.

As soon as her fingers slid across the curve of her neck, she felt a tingle. It grew, like a ripple, until it extended to her mind with big, sharp surges. She lurched forward, the knife almost falling out of her grasp. Her eyes widened.

It felt like she was drowning. But it didn't hurt.

"Isn't it just hilarious to meet under the circumstances we are in? You, who will harm me, a halfblood who teaches Muggle Studies."

Charity laughed, a strained, hysterical laugh that built up in intensity. Bellatrix's hands shook.

"You can't escape it now. You had to know that one day, all the bad acts that you've committed would come back to harm you. It's karmic intervention. You better kill me now and avoid feeling, forever," Charity said, her voice despaired.

Bellatrix knew she had to kill her. Her Lord… no, Voldemort, would kill them both otherwise. Her grip tightened around Charity's hair.

"I apologise..." Bellatrix started, her hair covering her face, "for what I have to do."

"Kill me, Bellatrix," she whispered.

Grasping the knife tighter in her hand and screaming, she delivered the fatal injury to Charity. Unable to bear the thought of watching the life leave her body, she turned away.

It was only then that she noticed she was crying.

Teardrops fell down her cheeks and she screamed, her voice displaying the grief of losing her soulmate immediately after finding out.

What good were feelings without someone special to share them with?

 **Fin**

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 **Word Count:** 1,538

 **Additional Prompts:**

The Golden Snitch - Through the Universe - (feeling) 179. Sunspot — drowning

The Golden Snitch - Ollivander's Wand Shop - Rougarou hair: Write about a Dark character.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry – Term #9: Assignment #4 – History of Magic, Task #2 - Chauncey Oldridge: Write about someone suffering with a magical illness.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The 365 Prompts Challenge - 215. Potion - Amortentia

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The Insane House Challenge - 337. Potion – Calming Draught

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - Return of the Chocolate Frog Cards Club - (Silver) Laverne Montmorency

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - Sewing 101 - (setting) Malfoy Manor, (action) glaring, (restriction) No Gryffindors

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - Fortnightly Debate Club, Pureblood - (word) 8. Apologise

 **Writing Club:**

Character Appreciation, Hermione Granger - [Features] 5. Messy hair

Disney Challenge, Songs - 2. I Wanna Be Like You - Write about someone different who wants to be 'normal.'

Dark Lady's Diabolical Lair - 19. Write about a horrific discovery.

Book Club, "Release" by Patrick Ness - The Queen: (plot point) being trapped- in any sense, (emotion) vengeful, (setting) prison/Azkaban

Showtime, Phantom of the Opera - 12. Down Once More / Track Down the Murderer - (setting) Dungeon

Count Your Buttons, Words - 2. Duress

Amy's Audio Admirations, The No Sleep Podcast: Ep 1 - 6. The King of Keys — (word) key. Alt. Write about finding somewhere/something you shouldn't.

Bex's Basement, Roald Dahl - 2. The Witches - Write about a dark witch.


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